As you can see in this article (link: https://bitcoinist.com/green-bitcoin-mining-paypal-proposes-reward-system-for-sustainable-miners/) the blockchain research arm of payments giant PayPal is teaming up with a bunch of other think tanks to design an environmentally sustainable and "green" mining system for Bitcoin.

Naturally for anyone with a little knowledge about Bitcoin, this means the elimination of Proof of Work, and the introduction of another kind of consensus.

In a recently published paper, PayPal’s Blockchain Research Group (BRG) proposed “the possibility for a more sustainable future” in Bitcoin mining. The investigation revealed that, as of April 2, data estimates the annualized emissions to be over 85 million metric tons of carbon dioxide due to Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism:

Maybe they should make conventional data centers greener first.

The paper suggests routing on-chain transactions to “green miners” via low transaction fees with a BTC reward “locked” in a multisig payout address. The rewards would serve as an incentive to mine these transactions, as only green miners would be eligible to receive them.

The solution is based on identifying miners that use low-emissions energy sources. After identification, their public keys, referred to as “green keys,” would be used to reward miners with Bitcoin in a trust-independent method through a “1-of-n multisig script.” As a result, the payout address would allow the miners with green keys to claim the rewards.

I see two big problems with this.

The first is that who decides what is a "green miner" and who isn't. That's right, they have centralized entities doing that which means the mining process becomes less decentralizedd as the process can be hijacked to exclude miners they don't like.

Second, who actually guarantees that any of the transactions are going to land in a block. This would require all miners not submitting their block templates to Bitcoin and to the centralized entity. This stinks of sanctions.

I was recently alerted of the presence of this site: http://xxkdkmhcrw7mug2nhtorvsusrydoqtfxggeu3rxcxglh3jk7ltmlmeqd.onion/

Apparently a blog post written by eXch themselves, it states that popular onion directories like dark.fail are being ran by scammers who replace the real onionsites for exchanges with fake ones that steal your crypto and send it to the operators (exactly how is still a mystery).

So DO NOT use crypto exchange URLs from the deep web. Only use the ones from this forum, Bitcointalk, or kycnot.me.

Note: I did not write this letter. It is from the bitcoin publication The Bugle (https://bugle.news) and I am sharing it here for discussion purposes.

For those who are out of the loop, r/Bitcoin refers to the Bitcoin community on reddit: https://reddit.com/r/bitcoin . It is the second oldest bitcoin community on the internet after Bitcointalk.

TL;DR I first saw this link on Stacker News where it seems that the editor is very, very upset at r/Bitcoin moderators deleting their posts. Anyhow, here is the letter:

Dear Reddit,

Let me begin by introducing myself; my name is Rod Palmer. I'm a journalist covering Bitcoin, politics, and current events for an independent media outlet called The Bugle (formerly Bitcoin Bugle). The Bugle is widely recognized by our readers to be the Bitcoin Standard of journalism. We think for our readers and we break news that's so fake, you'll think its real. In addition to breaking some of the most important stories in the industry, we recently launched a podcast called Bugle Weekly which debuted #1 on Fountain in March of 2024.

The Bugle is a mission driven news organization. Driven by our visionary founder, decorated journalist Richard Greaser, The Bugle is exposing the seedy underbelly of the Bitcoin industry and cleansing it of its iniquity. The Bugle penned a term which encapsulates the corruption and moral rot permeating the Bitcoin ecosystem: The Podcast and Conference Industrial Complex. PODCONF for short. PODCONF emerged from the shadows during the Covid lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 on platforms such as Clubhouse and X (formerly Twitter) before spreading and replicating, like the virus itself. It compromised respected Bitcoin podcasters such as Pomp, Peter McCormack, and Robert Breedlove. Within a few years, the mind virus mutated and began manifesting itself as Bitcoin conferences. As I am writing this letter, there are more Bitcoin conferences and Bitcoin podcasts than Bitcoin. Like Hydra, cutting the perceived head off PODCONF only results in two new conferences or podcasts to take its place. The industry has become deadlocked by the vicious cycle of Bitcoin companies sponsoring podcasts, podcasts sponsoring conferences, and conferences sponsoring podcasts.

This has resulted in a DDoS on the social layer of Bitcoin. New adopters and OG's alike are now inundated with an avalanche of noise whenever they search for signal. Cypherpunk pioneers continue to blaze trails and create new social networks where the signal to noise ratio is balanced in the favor of truth like Nostr and Stacker News but the average person is far less likely to stumble upon these digital citadels where knowledge and wisdom seek refuge. In order to connect with the normies, we need mainstream platforms where they can come to learn. Luckily, that platform already exists.

r/Bitcoin has successfully navigated the turbulence of the 2020s and managed to resist the spread of PODCONF. Some might think its a coincidence, others may attribute it to the fact that r/Bitcoin is oldest and strongest mainstream social network in the community and the first to emerge outside the BitcoinTalk forums. While there is certainly some truth to those assertions, I believe the primary reason is unwavering dedication to compliance by the r/Bitcoin moderators. The mods' strict rules, policies, spam filtering, and gatekeeping, enforced by code and guided by wisdom, have allowed the subreddit to amass over six million members and still keep PODCONF out. This achievement must be applauded.

To say that the staff at The Bugle admire r/Bitcoin's level of compliance would be an understatement. The Bugle believes discipline is freedom and compliance is sovereignty. The Bugle has tirelessly preached the importance of compliance and self censorship as the key to defeating the state and it's inflationary fiat monetary system. The Bugle actively invites and encourages all other Bitcoin companies, media outlets, podcasts, platforms, and conferences to compete in an attempt out comply us but, to date, only one has succeeded: r/Bitcoin. When the mods say comply, Redditors ask "how hard." The Bugle sees this as the blueprint for defeating PODCONF and ushering in HyperBitcoinization.

And that leads me to the purpose of this letter. We at the Bugle would like to publicly declare our desire to form an alliance with r/Bitcoin and its six million members to help fight PODCONF wherever it may manifest itself online. We at the Bugle want the moderators of r/Bitcoin to know that we are committed to compliance and will comply as hard as necessary to earn the ability to share our news with the r/Bitcoin community, post in the subreddit, and build relationships with the most knowledgeable and compliant members of the Bitcoin community.

We hope this letter reaches the mods and inspires them to reach out. It's no secret that r/Bitcoin has faced criticism in the past regarding its censorship policies and demands for compliance. We want to make it very clear that we do not share in that criticism. We recognize the importance of compliance and the imperative of self-censorship. You will not find a group of journalists or cypherpunks more dedicated to these core values than the staff at The Bugle. We can be stronger together.

If you happen read The Bugle, share with us what you think of it. Is it a good publication, or poor quality?

Nostr is accessible via many frontends and apps and only needs a keypair to log in instead of an email or phone number. It was created very recently, a few days ago.

Why you should use Nostr:

• It gives Elon a nervous breakdown
  
• It's censorship-resistant
• Lack of bots and trolls
• Mindful content
• Account cannot be suspended, only kicked off a relay
• No tracking or sharing data with 3rd parties
• "Likes" are actually small amounts of sats on Lightning network

I would like to know your thoughts about Nostr too. Do you use Nostr? If you don't, why not?

First of all, before you read this, I would like to say that this is a quite outdated method for creating a Bitcoin wallet and it is better to use a mnemonic phrase if at all possible.

If it is done properly, that is in an offline environment, no internet connectivity, no USB devices attached or any Bluetooth connections or the like, then the resulting wallet is very secure. In fact you are more likely to lose your wallet than for someone to hack it.

In this guide we will be using BitAddress.org. It is one of the oldest programs available for creating a Bitcoin address. In fact, creating a BitAddress wallet is more secure now than it was back then, when many libraries had serious vulnerabilities.

Let's get started.

Warning: Do not send any bitcoins to the addresses in the picture, or you will be robbed!

Step number one is to type "bitaddress.org" in your browser. I always recommend you do this instead of searching for it on google to avoid any phishing sites.

Now you are going to move the mouse around in random directions and bang on your keyboard and there will be green dots appearing like this:



Step number two is to keep doing this until the progress reaches 100%. Tip: moving the mouse around like a madman is much faster.

Step number three is to SAVE THE DETAILS OF YOUR WALLET. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Do not close the browser or go to another page until you do this, otherwise you will lose your wallet forever. Also do not send any bitcoins to the wallet until you have written down the private key completely. Never save private keys on an electronic device.



In a similar way, you can create a paper wallet. A paper wallet is a wallet that contains a single private key and address, but it is shaped like a piece of paper with QR codes on it and you can print it. It is not much different from the single-address wallet, and if you ask me its a bit more dangerous than the above method since you don't want thieves or other people to see a giant bitcoin logo on your private key. Nevertheless you can also create a paper wallet on Bitaddress.org by following a similar process.

A short list of Bitcoin address types and detailed information about them:

1. P2PK addresses. Also called Legacy addresses. Starts with a 1. If you decode the Base58 to bytes it is 0x0. Its BIP32 derivation path begins with m/44'/0'/0' .

2. P2SH addresses. These contain scripts. Starts with a 3, or in bytes, 0x5. Some of these use special opcodes become a Nested Segwit address and save fees. Its BIP32 derivation path begins with m/49'/0'/0'  (Nested Segwit only).

3. P2WPKH addresses. Also called Native Segwit addresses. Starts with bc1q. In bytes, "bc" is the human readable part and the 1 is a placeholder. This type of address uses the bech32 alphabet where "q" is the first digit, "p" is the second, and so on. Its BIP32 derivation path begins with m/84'/0'/0'.

4. P2TR addresses. Also called Taproot address. Starts with bc1p.  Its BIP32 derivation path begins with m/86'/0'/0' . Most wallets do not support creating this address type yet, although it is mainly used by Ordinals.